People are our power at Mettis Aerospace

We’re proud to be one of the largest companies in Redditch and were pleased to demonstrate all the great work our people are doing when we were visited recently by Rachel Maclean MP, Councillor Matt Dormer, Leader of Redditch Borough Council and Councillor Mike Rouse, Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Cultural Services.

Hosted by Jeremy Cieslik, Mettis’ Chief Operating Officer, and Jack Hinton, Advanced Apprentice Graduate of the Year, the group got to see the diversity of activities carried out by our talented teams from design and engineering to forging, machining and testing in our state-of-the-art laboratory, all of which have benefited from our £25 million investment programme. They also got an impression of how much we’ve grown over the last five years.

We spent quite a bit of time talking through our challenges too. One of our key concerns is recruiting all the people we need to fill the jobs we’re creating as we continue to grow. Some of the skills we need people to have are very specialised which can make roles hard to fill.

One of the best ways we find to address skills gaps is by anticipating future needs and investing in apprentices. We take on several each year who benefit from programmes designed to develop important skills in an ambitious environment. We’re proud of how far so many of our apprentices have progressed in our company over the years.

We also showed the group how, despite operating in a digital age and in such high-tech facilities, we use physical, visual management boards to drive our success in a consistent way across every level and department. The system is very dynamic, inclusive and interactive. But, most importantly, unlike PowerPoint slide sets/documents packs used by many companies to report on performance, our visual boards can be absorbed in one take, giving an immediate picture of how we’re doing in terms of safety, quality, delivery, cost and our people. Visual management enables us to be a lot more integrated, agile and responsive, something that’s at the heart of our culture.

Jeremy said: “Mettis plays a prominent role economically and socially in Redditch and so we were pleased to welcome our local MP and councillors to site to talk about how we can all work together to help maintain the global competitiveness of the aerospace sector in the area while growing the next generation of talented people to be part of our future success.”

Rachel said: “I had an absolutely fascinating visit to Mettis Aerospace which is the largest employer here in Redditch. Not only does this global company support our town’s economy, but it also invests in its employees too. I was blown away by Jeremy’s enthusiasm and ambition for the future of this proud Redditch company and how invested he is in training up the next generation of talent. This is a company we should all be proud of.”